Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Here is a book my boys loved to death. Do you have any of those around your house? A book that you or your family has read over and over again until it is falling apart and you tape it back together and read some more? Post a picture of it on your blog and tell the story. If you can't get a picture, just tell the story. A kid's book or a grown up book, from back in the day or today. What are you wearing out with reading?

10 comments:

There have been a number of books that have needed replacement copies: yes, Goodnight Gorilla was one of them, as was Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. My daughter, Lucia, wore out our copy of Jack Kent's The Twelve Days of Christmas (and wore us out, too, with the reading/singing). I currently have TDOC on my shelf with intentions of mending it... but not too soon. I have books on my shelf that Lucia is allowed to look at only with supervision because they're my storytime copies.

It just occured to me-- as much as I loved books when I was little, I think my daughter loves them even more. Then again, I was never allowed to bring my books to bed! Often, I go into Lucia's room at night to make sure she's tucked in, and I have to ease several books from under her to put back on the shelf.

One year, when I was teaching second grade, I had a little girl who would go to the reading corner every day as soon as she had completed her class assigments. And every day she read the same book: PIGGIE PIE, which was written by Margie Palatini and illustrated by Howard Fine. She loved that book to death...so I bought another copy of it.

I have a paperback copy of "Just Like Abraham Lincoln" by Bernard Waber, it is falling apart, my library does not have a copy and it is out of print. My oldest son used to enjoy the book (age 11) and now I read it to my students during president's week, I just hope it holds up a few more years.

My parents have a book called The Bumper Book, it is a collection of stories and poems, it is older than me (I'm late 30's) and my paretns have read it to all their children & grandchildren. It is held together by tape and lots of love - I will try and get my Dad to take a picture of it!

Our copy of Michael Rosen's We're Going on a Bear Hunt just recently bit the dust at our house.

It didn't help that it first entered our home as a library discard. First a few pages tore and were carefully taped back together. Then the binding came apart, and I would carefully shuffle the pages back together after each storytime.

But, alas, my two-year-old daughter decided to read it on her own for a while, and her chubby little fingers just weren't dextrous enough to turn the pages in that oh-so-careful manner (what, didn't she listen to my tutorial?). A crumpled-up pile of pastels is all that's left.

We're not going on a bear hunt ever again. (Or at least not until we find it at the library.)

My Harry Potter hardcovers are falling apart, as is the LOTR series I purchased in Calcutta, India when I was 19. Don't want to replace the latter as they're associated with so many long train journeys across the Motherland. As for books read to my kids, "More, More, More," said the baby featured a brown boy with a blonde grandmother dancing together, so we loved that.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? and Mem Fox's Time For Bed didn't make it for the arrival of my second child, two years later. Not only did the bindings peel, but pages stuck together and tore from drips of sticky juice.

In my second grade class, I can't keep the boys away from The Adventures of Captain Underpants. It's seen the book hospital one too many times. The librarian will just have to keep repairing her copy.

Gone With The Wind is the book I read to pieces. It's hardcover--or was hardcover--but there is only so much scotch tape to do to keep it on these days. I've bought several replacements in paperback...but soon these were even in worse condition than the hardcover. Apparently, paperbacks are only good for one or two readings...so that couldn't do. I eventually found at a used bookstore, an exact duplicate for my hardcover (the teal one published in the sixties). The weird thing??? Now I'm so cautious of preserving it that I still read the other copies...

Thanks for tagging me! I can't believe I missed it before. I even saw the post, but somehow missed the tag at the end.

I don't have kids, and I tend to treat my books very carefully, so they're mostly in good shape. I do have one ruined book story, however. I had a beautiful illustrated copy of The Scalawags of Oz, which I adored. I'm not even sure where it came from - it was quite old. My bedroom was in my parents' basement, and it flooded from time to time. Somehow that book ended up on the floor under my bed, and was ruined by water damage. In my memory, I blame my sister, but that's really not fair, and it was probably carelessness on my own part. I still miss it to this day. I don't have a picture.